Jaguar F-Type Goes Public At Goodwood, GT3 Race Car Rumor Ignites

The Jaguar F-Type has been making camouflaged rounds of the web since its announcement at the New York Auto Show this April, but today it finally made its public debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The car, still wearing its camouflage covering, took to the famous Goodwill hill climb with its top down, looking sporty and quick in these still images. It should be quick, however, sporting a supercharged 3.0-liter V-6 engine rated at 380 horsepower and more compact dimensions than any current Jaguar.

As Mike Cross, Jaguar's head of vehicle integrity, put it, "The F-TYPE will deliver a driver-focused sports car experience, and camouflaged prototypes like this one are currently being tested all over the world. The development programme is right on schedule, and coming here today to showcase just a little of the dynamic precision, noise, speed and excitement that the production F-TYPE will exhibit is very satisfying."

Running in parallel, but completely unofficial, is a rumor that Jaguar is already hard at work, with the cooperation of Williams F1, to build and produce a run of 20 racing F-Types for FIA GT3 competition. The report, via AutoExpress, claims a 500-horsepower 1.6-liter four-cylinder scrounged from the C-X75 hybrid supercar will be the power source. That's a surprising move--and one that's not entirely clear to be legal under FIA homologation rules--but we'd love to see such a vehicle take to the track in anger.